High levels of employee engagement is a goal most organizations share, and it’s usually viewed as an indicator of a healthy corporate culture. According to Deloitte, 87 percent of executives rate culture and engagement as their biggest HR-related challenge. However, engagement can be a nebulous concept, and few can agree on what it is. Does it mean happiness? Satisfaction? Motivation? Collaboration? There are myriad elements that make up engagement, which can make the prospect of achieving it even more confusing. However, some experts are looking to nail the concept down. For some experts, engagement is one of several factors that goes into a healthy corporate culture, not a byproduct of it. Employee engagement is not an outcome,” says George Larocque, an HR tech and trends adviser, “but one strong supporting pillar to culture and business results.” And one of the most important elements of engagement, Laroque is finding, is purpose. “Perhaps the strongest component of culture that resonates with employees, of all generations, is having purpose and meaning in their work,” he says. According to recent studies, 54.7 percent of employees say that a sense of meaning is the most important factor affecting their engagement in their work, exceeding both pay and benefits.